NCM NewsFeed

Here and Now

This week, we present our second edition of Research Watch, featuring recent findings on the general topic of immigration -- in both a national and international context. We lead with breaking news about the new alliance between the Maytree Foundation and Ryerson University that promises to add heft to the economic case for immigration and diversity.

Our partners at Pathways to Prosperity have opened registrations for their second annual conference, scheduled for November in Montreal.

The Canadian government has come under fire for its perceived silence following news that China will only allow government-approved candidates to run for Hong Kong’s chief executive’s office.

Chinese officials have maintained that the government is fulfilling the promise made in 1997 following the British handover to support democratic rights in the territory under a "One Country, Two Systems" framework. However, while “universal suffrage” is on offer, critics have argued that Beijing’s tight control over the choice of candidates will undermine any democratic gains.

“Canada and other countries have core values that are shared by Hong Kong,” said Anson Chan Fang On-sang, the former Hong Kong Chief Secretary, in an interview with the Globe and Mail.“So, are the free societies in Canada and in the international community going to stand up for their principles? Or are they going to cave in?”

According to reports, over 300,000 Hong Kong residents hold Canadian passports. Successive Canadian governments have fostered strong ties with the city.

In the meantime, pro-democracy activists have vowed to launch a campaign of civil disobedience. The election is due to be held in 2017.

Hackers Take on South American Government Networks

A national political uproar has erupted in Peru as news emerged that hackers have further infiltrated military, police, and other government networks in Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, and Venezuela.

The hackers, calling themselves LulzSecPeru, had already done much damage to their own government following the theft of emails from the Peruvian Council of Minister’s network, later dumped online.

The Peruvian cabinet is still reeling from that incident, which helped precipitate a no-confidence motion in late August. The cabinet only narrowly survived.

According to the Associated Press, the hackers “describe themselves as two young men,” fashioning themselves as homegrown versions of American and British hackers, known as “LulzSec ‘black hat’ hacker collective”.

Gabriella Coleman, an anthropologist at McGill University in Montreal, told AP that while “hacktivism” is on the wane in the U.S. and western Europe, “hackers in Latin America, however, never really stopped.”

The duo’s online mischief includes the defacement of Peru-based Antamina copper mine’s website and the sabotage of the Venezuelan ruling party’s website in support of anti-government protesters.

The image of an immigrant driving a cab with a medical degree from his own country on the dashboard is almost cliché in Canada. And it’s cliché for a reason: it’s estimated that there are as many as 6,000 international medical graduates in Ontario alone who have been frustrated in their attempts to practice medicine here. While the situation is far from funny, Dr. Cabbie, a new Canadian film, takes up this cliché for the sake of comedy. Co-produced by Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, Dr. Cabbie stars Vinay Virmani as a doctor who, unable to practice elsewhere, converts his Toronto cab into a mobile clinic and becomes a local hero. The film had its premier in Brampton, where it was filmed, and Toronto this past weekend and will appear in theaters September 19.

Don’t Forget the Soap (And Other Reminders from My Fabulous Filipina Mother) is the memoir of Marie Claire Lim Moore, a self-described Filipina-Canadian-American. With this, her first book, Lim Moore explodes any expectation of the immigrant experience necessarily being a rags-to-riches story. Her parents were both professionals who brought careers with them from the Philippines, and one of her mother’s greatest struggles was to get used to life without paid domestic help. Lim Moore herself was born in Vancouver and educated at the United Nations International School in New York and, later, Yale University. Don’t Forget the Soap spends a bit too much time on name-dropping and horn-tooting, a problem common to self-published memoirs, but that’s not to say that there aren’t charming and relatable stories here. Lim Moore is an able writer, and she shares her families’ anecdotes with obvious affection and respect. When the author’s mother counsels her to steal the hotel soaps, we admire both her frugality and that she is aware that a life that includes hotels and complimentary toiletries is a privilege that others, back home, will never know. Many children of immigrant parents will surely nod in recognition at such motherly pearls of wisdom and laugh with Lim Moore in honour of her fabulous mother.

With that, have a great weekend and don’t forget to look up the next edition of NCM NewsFeed every Friday morning! We will soon be launching an e-mail version of this newsletter, so please subscribe by clicking here.

Publisher’s Note: This NewsFeed was compiled with input from our Newsroom Editors and regular columnist, Andrew Griffith. The home page image accompanying NewsFeed this week shows a "Diversity Face" created by the George A. Spiva Center for the Arts in Joplin, Missouri. We welcome your feedback.

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The honest truth is there is still reluctance around immigration policy... When we want to talk about immigration and we say we want to bring more immigrants in because it's good for the economy, we still get pushback.